﻿Long-Burning Firestarter

It has been a rainy winter so far and we’ve been having a hard time starting a good fire for our home-made firepit (which we will write about in another post). We have been wasting a lot of firestarter cubes to start burning the kinda-wet wood we are getting from the bush. To solve the problem (yes, we overthink minor things), here’s a random weekend project we tested out (as inspired by The King of Random):

TOTAL PROJECT COST: About 48.00AUD ($42.00 for the rum and $6.00 for the cola cans).

MATERIALS: Coke Zero cans (if you’re a big rum cola fan yourself who is trying to cut back on your sugar intake) or whatever recyclable tin can you can get, corrugated cardboard pieces from any carton or box you have hoarded over the years, a couple of candles, and a pair of scissors.

Pour yourself a jigger or a double jigger of rum (we used Bundaberg Red), open the can of Coke, and fill your glass to the rim. Enjoy your drink and get to work. Wash the cola can and cut about 1/3 of the whole cylinder. Get your cardboard and cut lengthwise (about the same height of the cut open can). Make sure you cut to a length that when you roll it, it fits perfectly into the can. You are allowed to make googly eyes at each other while you’re in the middle of all these as long as you don’t cut yourself.

Heat a pan and start melting the candles.

Once you have your cardboard rolled inside your can (make sure to fold a thin cardboard in the middle to serve as a wick), pour the melted wax all over it. Make sure that the melted candle soaks the rolled cardboard. And you’re done.

We tested this last Friday night and it burned straight for 15 minutes. It started drizzling while we were making the fire and it burned until we decided to put the fire out and go inside. We are making more this weekend as we are planning to have a big fire with friends. It’s always nice to show off having to start a fire or a barbecue without fail.